A Short Walk to the Beginning of the Rest of My Life!
A Disabled Firefighters MemoirBy Mark A. ServatiusAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Mark A. Servatius Fire Chief/Building Official (Ret.)
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4389-7652-5Contents
Foreword...............................................................................................ixPreface................................................................................................xiiiAcknowledgment.........................................................................................xvChapter 1 A wake-up call...............................................................................1Chapter 2 A meager beginning but an amazing heritage...................................................5Chapter 3 Another slice of family history In defense of a dispassionate bureaucrat.....................9Chapter 4 Down on the farm.............................................................................11Chapter 5 The fledgling daredevil......................................................................17Chapter 6 No pork for me, thank-you very much..........................................................19Chapter 7 The school bully.............................................................................21Chapter 8 The first seeds of passion are sown..........................................................23Chapter 9 Brother spud.................................................................................29Chapter 10 The assassination of a sixth-graders President..............................................31Chapter 11 The perfect play............................................................................33Chapter 12 My obsession with cars......................................................................37Chapter 13 Networking, the beginning of my career......................................................41Chapter 14 College.....................................................................................43Chapter 15 Physical Education at 4,000 feet............................................................47Chapter 16 Two minutes from eternity...................................................................51Chapter 17 Solo flight beneath the heavens.............................................................57Chapter 18 Beginnings of my semiprofessional music career..............................................67Chapter 19 My cowboy N' days with Stoney and Napoleon..................................................71Chapter 20 My time as a mixologist.....................................................................75Chapter 21 Clearing the initial barriers...............................................................79Chapter 22 Chezz-it, it's the rent-a-cop...............................................................87Chapter 23 The Galloway house..........................................................................91Chapter 24 Dirt bike N' the fox and the hound..........................................................95Chapter 25 An afternoon with a country music icon......................................................99Chapter 26 Two doors down yet worlds apart.............................................................105Chapter 27 Unprecedented...............................................................................111Chapter 28 A wrong turn, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons......................................115Chapter 29 Just another day at the office, a true heroic act...........................................119Chapter 30 A firefighter's wife........................................................................121Chapter 31 Oops!.......................................................................................125Chapter 32 From the humorous to the horrific...........................................................127Chapter 33 Ouch!.......................................................................................139Chapter 34 The silent hazards of the job...............................................................143Chapter 35 A lifetime of missed opportunities..........................................................147Chapter 36 A family's lethal defective gene............................................................153Chapter 37 Another milestone in my career..............................................................155Chapter 38 Errors in judgment and a lack of leadership.................................................157Chapter 39 Structural engineering 101 for firefighters.................................................159Chapter 40 Call the golf course get a doctor...........................................................163Chapter 41 The System # % $ + =?? ?....................................................................169Chapter 42 Be Prepared.................................................................................173Chapter 43 The second seed of passion sprouts..........................................................175Chapter 44 The deer will be looking?...................................................................179Chapter 45 The inheritance of a Fire Chief.............................................................181Chapter 46 Behind the closed door of the inner-sanctum.................................................183Chapter 47 A rude awakening............................................................................189Chapter 48 A true and lasting friendship...............................................................191Chapter 49 The firefighting bug bites..................................................................193Chapter 50 The apropos firefighter's birthday celebration..............................................199Chapter 51 Life after MS...............................................................................203Chapter 52 A father's love.............................................................................205Chapter 53 A time of reflection........................................................................207Family Photo Gallery...................................................................................209Author's Curriculum Vitae..............................................................................221Epilogue...............................................................................................223
Chapter One
A wake-up call
It was a beautiful morning in mid-July of 1992. At the time, I had a private office on the first floor of city hall. A bank of windows faced the street where I always parked my fire chief staff car.
I had just finished wrapping-up a meeting with the on-duty fire captain and I was anxious to tackle my routinely hectic schedule.
After exchanging salutations, Captain Wilson exited my office and began the two-block trek back to the fire station.
I reached for my briefcase I needed to take with me for an important scheduled meeting away from city hall, but I did not have the strength to grasp the handle to pick it up.
Suddenly, I was overcome with flu type symptoms. In an instant, I became weak and nauseous. Within seconds, I was lightheaded; the slightest movement of my head to the right or the left caused me to have the worst case of vertigo than I had ever experienced.
It literally took close to 20-minutes to shuffle my feet the 25-feet to reach my car.
By the time I made the 10-minute drive to my residence, my symptoms had worsened drastically. I was sweating profusely; my suit jacket was saturated with perspiration.
At the same time, I had developed a terrible sinus headache; you know the type that feels as if someone is using two 12 lb. bowling balls to relentlessly pound away directly behind your eye sockets.
Fortunately, as always I had backed my chief's car into my driveway in the event of having to respond to an emergency. I turned the cars motor off and just sat there motionless, in an attempt to regain my composer.
After a few moments, I opened the car door and started to exit the vehicle; when I stepped out and began to stand erect, I collapsed facedown onto the concrete surface.
After lying there, for what seemed like hours, I got on my hands and knees and crawled the additional 25-feet to reach my front doorstep.
I fumbled through my front pockets to retrieve my key ring. Struggling to pull myself high enough to reach the door handle, I unlocked the door, entered the dwelling's front entry hall, closing the door behind me.
I continued my arduous crawl to my master bedroom. I pulled myself onto the bed and called my wife at her workplace. Exhausted, I collapsed; my body sprawled upon the bed, awaiting my wife's arrival home.
Kathy wasted no time getting home, arriving much sooner than I had anticipated; regardless I was glad to see her. I briefed her on what had occurred. Her EMS (Emergency Medical Service) training immediately kicked in. Kathy knew my past medical history of numerous injuries to my knees and multiple fractures of both legs and feet.
She began by calling orthopedists', in an attempt to schedule an appointment a.s.a.p. It was Wednesday and the earliest she was able to secure an appointment was the following Friday at 9:30 AM. By Wednesday evening, I had regained partial use of both legs and my sinus headache had subsided.
The following Friday Kathy drove and accompanied me to my 9:30 AM appointment with the orthopedist. The orthopedist did a series of reflex testing; then he excused himself and left the exam room.
He returned shortly accompanied by another orthopedist. While the accompanying orthopedist observed, the initial orthopedist used his right hand to apply upward pressure to my right foot causing my big toe to flex.
Using his left hand, he grasped a pointed stainless steel instrument that he used to stroke upward on the outside medial line of my right big toe. This caused my leg muscles to uncontrollably spasm violently. By firmly grasping my leg and holding onto it for a couple seconds, would immediately stop the spasms. This procedure was repeated on the left leg, with similar results.
I learned a new medical term that day, which soon became a part of my daily vocabulary. The medical term for this spasticity event, is called 'Clonus'. This involuntary shaking or jerking of the leg is caused by repeated, rhythmic, reflex muscle contractions.
After conversing amongst themselves for a brief period, they turned to Kathy and me abruptly, stating I had either multiple sclerosis or a brain tumor.
They called and arranged an appointment to see a neurologist the same day and, in turn, arranged for me to have an M.R.I. (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) later the same day.
After completion of the M.R.I., they sent us home and told us they would have the results in two-weeks and we needed to schedule an appointment with the neurologist for a consultation. For two-weeks, Kathy and I nervously awaited the test results.
It is difficult for me to verbalize the feeling of relief and tranquility I felt when the test results showed I had multiple sclerosis, not a brain tumor. Then, reality set-in and I realized, in essence I was just issued a death warrant with no chance of parole.
The following few days I had ample time to reflect on my lifetime. I kept asking myself if I had the chance to do it over again would I have done anything different. The answer is a definitive yes.
I would have been a better listener to what my parents and my school teachers were trying to teach me while growing-up. I would have been a much stronger and more devout Catholic. Most importantly, I would have tried to be a better husband and father.
In this life there are no do-overs; we only have one shot to get it right.
Life's lesson is, "Live each day to its fullest, as if it was your last."
Chapter Two
A meager beginning but an amazing heritage
At 4:35 AM on Thursday July 3, 1952, I entered this world as Mark Anthony Servatius, to proud parents Carole Jean and Phillip Robert Servatius. If either of them had an inkling of a clue what lay in store, there is a distinct possibility that I could have been an only child.
Seventeen days later, on July 20, 1952 Fr. F.P. McGlinchey baptized me as a Roman Catholic. Later on June 12, 1960. I received my first holy communion from Fr. Wm. McQuiad. Subsequently on April 26, 1964 I was confirmed a Roman Catholic by Bishop Sylvester Treinen. Additionally, I served as an altar boy from the age of eight until I was fourteen.
Fortunately, for me my mother later gave birth to my sister Leanne, my brother Greg and my youngest and final sibling Karen, who later would change the spelling to Karyn.
My entire adulthood, whenever I meet someone for the first time, he or she always ask me the origin of the Servatius name, pronounced Survey-T-Us; I would always tell them that it was German. Their typical response is, really or interesting, sounds Greek.
It was not until early fall of 2004, my son Ryan, who has always been a student of world history, was inquisitive about the ancestry of the Servatius name.
He turned to Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.
Anyone that knows me will tell you that I am far from being a saint; so what Ryan discovered blew me away. The Servatius name can be traced back to the fourth century and the Roman Empire.
In 343 AD, during the period in history of the Roman Empire, Saint Servatius was bishop of Tongeren, Belgium.
Tongeren served as the administrative center of the district of Tungri, under the Roman's rule. It still exists today, as the oldest city in Belgium.
Later in life, Saint Servatius fled to Maastricht. Maastricht is located in the lowlands of southeastern Netherlands. It is situated on the banks of the Maas River, near the border of Belgium. Saint Servatius became Maastricht's first bishop.
Saint Servatius introduced Christianity to the far west of the Roman Empire when he built the Basilica of Our Lady over what was once the Roman temple of Fortuna and Jupiter in Tongeren. The Basilica of Saint Servatius is located in what is today Maastricht, Netherlands. It is dedicated to and built over Saint Servatius's grave.
This church is one of the oldest in the Netherlands, is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
While Saint Servatius was a priest, for a time he was guardian of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
Legend has it, that Saint Servatius was born in Fenuste, located southeast of Damascus, Syria. This makes him a distant relative of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ, through his mother, Memelia.
Saint Servatius died in Maastricht on May 13, 384 AD. Saint Servatius is patron saint of the cities of Maastricht and Grimbergen, and is venerated on May 13.
Chapter Three
Another slice of family history In defense of a dispassionate bureaucrat
Fast-forward to the 20th century, in the city of Nuremburg, Germany. The date is November 20, 1945 and the infamous Nuremberg Trials begin. For the youngsters amongst you, the Nuremburg trails were a series of trials to prosecute Nazi Germanys' captured war criminals.
Robert Servatius was a prominent German defense lawyer from Cologne, Germany. He was also my grandfather Julius Servatius's cousin and my father's namesake.
Robert Servatius's most notable defense trials he argued were for war criminals Fritz Sauckel and Karl Brandt in the Nuremburg trials.
Another prominent case he argued was much later in Jerusalem on June 20, 1961 in defense of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was in charge of the complex logistics of transporting Jews to the death camps all over German-occupied Europe. He was responsible for the extermination of an estimated 1.5 million Jewish men, women, and children.
Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp complexes. Located in German-occupied southern Poland, it took its name from the nearby town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz in German). Auschwitz was situated about 50 kilometers (approx. 31miles) west of Krakow, Poland and 286 kilometers (approx. 178 miles) from Warsaw, Poland. Following the German occupation of Poland in September of 1939, Oswiecim was incorporated into Germany.
Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler were the two heroic Slovak Jewish prisoners, who after three days of hiding in a woodpile, escaped from Auschwitz. They tried several times, to explain to the authorities, the daily genocide that was occurring, but to no avail. To think that Hitler's henchmen, Adolf Eichmann was on the average exterminating 12,000 Jewish prisoners a day seemed far-fetched and unimaginable.
Eichmann was hanged in Israel on May 31, 1962. He remains today to be the only person to have been executed in that country following a guilty verdict by a civilian Israeli court.
Chapter Four
Down on the farm
Each year my mom grew a large vegetable garden. My entire family engaged in the planting, irrigating and weeding. We enjoyed eating fresh vegetables throughout the summer. Every year the surrounding farmer's growing sweet corn, would allow my family to pick as much as we needed of the row ends, so it went with various other produce.
Each fall we would gather all the remaining produce and take it to the Weiser community cannery. We would spend the entire day processing our produce, including chili using some of the fresh venison from the deer dad had harvested that year.
I had two neighborhood friends that I played with, Carl Widner and Kelly Moser. Carl grew-up directly across the road from my home.
He was the ninth sibling in a family of ten children. Carl's mother, Vadis delivered all her children at home without the aid of a doctor or midwife.
Their house had no electricity, no heating system, no running water, nor any indoor plumbing. They used kerosene lanterns for lighting. Vadis cooked and baked using a wood-fired cooking range and oven. The only form of refrigeration was a root cellar.
They had a small herd of dairy cows that required milking every day by hand. The small monthly milk check from the creamery was the family's sole source of income. They skimmed a portion of the cream off the top of the milk they sold and hand churned it into butter.
They grew all of their own fruits and vegetables. They raised their own chickens, some laying hens for the eggs. They butchered the ones that had stopped laying along with a few roosters for table fare. They raised and slaughtered their own beef cattle and hogs. Each year they always harvested a deer, for the venison meat. On the very lean year's they might even poach an extra one or two, just to feed their family.
Carl's mom Vadis made her own lye laundry soap and hand washed what few articles of clothes each family member possessed. She hand stitched all of the girl's dresses and the boy's shirts, using a needle and thread.
Amazingly, while growing-up neither Carl nor his nine siblings were not seriously ill a single day.
One day, when we were eight or nine Carl's dad John was using his Ford tractor to clean the roads steep barrow pit. Carl and I made a game out of chasing close behind the tractor. As John attempted to climb, back onto the roadway he missed a gear and the tractor started to roll backwards.
I was in the direct line of the left rear tractor tire, but once again, God came to my rescue. Just as the tire was within 12" of running me over, John was able to engage the clutch and the tractor climbed onto the roadway, sparing my life.
My other friend Kelly Moser lived up the road about a fourth of a mile toward town. Kelly's dad operated a large dairy farm.
Kelly owned a jet-black Honda 250 Dream road bike. One hot summer afternoon, the two of us got the brilliant idea to tether a short length of ¼" manila rope to the back of his motorcycle and the other end we tied to the yoke of my bicycle's handlebars. We were both in the eighth grade, about to enter high school and should have known better.
Everything was going along smoothly. Kelly had gotten us up to around thirty-five mph. It was not until Kelly started braking to slow down that I got into trouble. We were still traveling around twenty-five mph, when I stood up to apply my brakes. The bicycle did a front wheel stand.
Neither Kelly nor I were wearing helmets. In the early sixties helmets were for sissies. I could have been seriously injured or killed, but again, God rescued me.
When I was about six and starting grade school, my dad began to demand a lot of me. Every summer, I had to help him pull every kind of noxious weed on the family farm, especially the 'puncture vines', which could grow to be eight-feet in diameter. It overtook the graveled driveway accessing our private residence and the homesteads two main crop fields.
Dad had purchased an additional ten acres directly across the road from our family home. It like the home place comprised two separate fields. It also had a graveled access lane to our livestock corral's and the two additional crop fields.
Our driveway and lane to the corrals were aligned directly across the road from each other. During the summer, months this lane was literally blanketed with puncture vines. The lane was the better part of seventy-five yards in length. I had the laborious task of finding each plants taproot, and uprooting it, by using my leather gloved hands and/ or spade shovel.
At times, I hated my dad for this task. His rationale for this summer ritual was that he worked hard and long hours to provide food, clothing, and a roof over our heads, which undeniably he had done. He told me that the least I could do was to pitch-in and help with the daily chores around the farm.
Adding insult to injury, it was a perpetual problem of digging thorns out of my bicycle tires and patching the tires inner tube. It was the rear tire, that always went flat, or so it seemed. For an eight or nine year old kid it was a major undertaking. In the end, I usually had to wait until my dad found time to help me.
Compounding my misery, I had terrible allergies, during the summer months. Within fifteen minutes of pulling weeds, my eyes would begin to swell to the point of almost swelling shut, accompanied by a horrible sinus headache.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Short Walk to the Beginning of the Rest of My Life!by Mark A. Servatius Copyright © 2010 by Mark A. Servatius Fire Chief/Building Official (Ret.). Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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